


For the Dancing and the Dreaming

by CanisMajor1234



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brief character death, M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7671115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanisMajor1234/pseuds/CanisMajor1234
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU: You don’t see color until you touch your soulmate. Peggy touches Steve when the serum finishes its work, and his world bursts into color.<br/>Hers doesn’t.<br/>Skip forward 70 years. Peggy’s dead and everything is black and white again.<br/>Enter Tony fucking Stark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Dancing and the Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> For an upsetti friend. I hope this is as good a spaghetti.

It’s always been a dream of Steve’s, to meet his soulmate. His mom had raised him on the stories of brave princes rescuing beautiful princesses, their fingers touching and their worlds blooming into color. The best artists had loved their soulmates with everything they had, his mom had told him.

(She never told him that they had loved from afar, reaching for their soulmates like a sky just beyond the tips of their fingers. She never told him how bittersweet beauty could be, how painful it could be to lose it. Steve had to learn that one the hard way.)

There were a good few years when Steve stopped believing in soulmates. Fight after fight, trial after trial, and Steve just couldn’t believe that _this_ was the king of world that bred such a beautiful thing as soulmates. There were plenty of pretty things in the world, but nothing could possibly be _that_ good.

Besides, Steve tells himself as he watches Bucky mack on the girl he’d been dancing with earlier, the world’s moved on from soulmates. Life’s too short to spend all your time looking for that “special someone”. After all, these days, with the war and all, they could already be dead.

At least, that’s what Steve tells himself when he agrees to Project Rebirth.

(When they ask him during, he tells them he can do it. When they ask him later, he will tell them it didn’t hurt. He’ll tell them that the anesthetic did it’s job, that he didn’t remember feeling a thing. That would be a lie, though. He won’t tell them how the serum burned off the anesthetic within the first five minutes. He won’t tell them how every second stretched, about how the pain would knock him out only to wake up again, how he might have bitten through his tongue a couple times to keep himself from screaming.)

Peggy. Her name is Peggy and she’s… wonderful. Brilliant. Beautiful. Strong, too. Everything Steve could have wanted and more. She touches Steve and his world bursts into color: silver, blue, green, _red_. It’s wonderful and brilliant and beautiful and she…

She doesn’t see it. Steve can see it in her eyes, when he looks into the honey-brown of her gaze with awe and is met with only confusion. It hurts a little. Okay, that’s a lie. It hurts a lot. Because even without knowing, Peggy has shown him a world so unlike the one he’s always known, so beautiful in its complexity, and then tore it away.

Steve doesn’t hold it against her. It’s not Peggy’s fault things turned out like this. It’s just a sick twist of fate, one that doesn’t stop them from becoming fast friends. Between her and Bucky, Steve’s life is more or less complete. The world may be catching fire around them, but Steve can safely, selfishly say that he’s _happy_.

And then everything falls apart.

The water is cold, piercing- actually, that might be the glass breaking apart with the impact. Steve wants to gasp from the pain, but he knows he’ll only breathe in water. He wonders if the rest of his team is okay. He wonders if the medics got to them in time.

(“Hey, Peggy.” A sense of dull resignation settles in his stomach. He won’t be afraid, though. He can’t be. “I’m going to have to call a raincheck on that dance.”)

He wonders if they’ll ever find his body. Not likely. The ice field is in the middle of nowhere. Even if the navigation hadn’t been blown, if they did get his coordinates before he crashed, who knows how far he would drift. Maybe it’s better this way: Steve can feel the way his ribs are twisted. That won’t be a pretty sight.

(“Alright.” She sounds like she’s holding back a sob, but she doesn’t cry. Maybe she is, though, behind the microphone. Steve will never know. “A week. Next Saturday at the Stork Club. Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late, understood?”)

Maybe this is how Bucky felt, falling from the train and hitting the icy river below. Maybe he died when he hit the water. God, Steve hopes so.

(“You know.” Steve laughs a bit, and it hurts to get it out of his throat. “I still don’t know how to dance.”)

They’ll have a service for him, he’s sure. Peggy will arrange it. They’ll put a tombstone next to his mom. Maybe they’ll have one for Bucky, too., because the Rogers were always the closest thing Bucky had to a family. He hopes the flowers will be red. Out of all of the colors he’d ever seen, he’s sure he likes red the most.

(Peggy actually chokes on a sob this time, and Steve has to blink away tears. “I’ll show you how,” she insists. “Just _be there_.”)

There’s no one coming. Steve knows that. There’s not enough time, never enough time. But maybe if he just lies down, closes his eyes for a bit, Steve can pretend to but himself some.

(“We’ll have the band play something slow!” He has to shout now, over the roar of the engines and the water. “I’d hate to step on your-!”)

Hospital gowns and scratchy bedsheets. Blank walls. Plain curtains. A pretty face dolled up to be familiar enough, but Steve can tell immediately that’s all she is- a doll.

Grey. Grey, grey, grey, grey. Steve stands in the middle of Times Square and watches this new world spin around him in tones of grey. He finds himself choking up, eyes watering, and he has to work to swallow it back.

“Something wrong?” the agent asks, and he probably means well. Probably. But Steve can only shake his head, mouth working around words he can barely hear over the ringing in his ears and the beating of his heart.

“No, I just…” He chokes up, struggling to find the words. He can only come up with four short ones.

“ _I had a date_.”

For everything that’s changed, a lot of things don’t. Tony is not a spitting image of his father by any means- too much of his mother in him. The resemblance is there, though. Steve has to focus on the little differences to remind himself that, no, this isn’t Howard, even is Tony talks with his hands just like his old man did. Or when Tony decides to be mulishly stubborn about something and Steve just has to… stop, a second, and breathe.

They’re the Avengers, and Steve’s their Captain. He can tell by their first meeting that none of them except _maybe_ Thor are comfortable with this. Natasha and Clint are too used to working alone or as a pair, Bruce is too afraid of his own power, Thore is a fucking god, and Tony? Tony doesn’t take orders from anyone, much less an “old man who’s been a popsicle for the last seven decades”.

And Steve? Steve’s not ready for this. It feels like just last week that he watched Bucky fall off a bridge and to his death a couple hundred feet below. It feels like just yesterday that he resigned himself to certain death in an icefield in the middle of nowhere. He’s still trying to reconcile himself with the fact that this is _seventy years_ after WWII, that this isn’t a dream- hell, that he’s even _alive_ after the crash, after being frozen for that long. The physics of the Helicarrier still baffle him. “Magic” is apparently an acceptable answer for how Thor and Loki got here from Asgard, and for how Loki plans to dominate the world. And don’t even get Steve started on the logistics of the Ironman suit.

So, Steve’s not ready for this in the slightest. But he has to be, because if one thing hasn’t changed in seventy years, it’s that being the strong one with all his shit together is still his _fucking job_. So he gets his shit together. He reads everyone’s files, learns as much about them as he can. Turns them from a rag-tag group of washed out assassins and geniuses (and one Norse god) into a cohesive unit, one that he can trust to have his back. It doesn’t happen all at once, of course, but he lays the foundation.

They’re the Avengers, and Steve’s their Captain. Tony, though, typical Tony, doesn’t go down without a fight. Or, maybe he already has, but he still wants to struggle because he’s infuriating like that. Steve will realize later that it’s just Tony’s way of showing affection without showing all his cards, but in the moment Tony just seems to rub Steve the wrong way. He doesn’t know why it bothers him, Tony’s animosity.

He’ll only realize it’s because he’s in love with Tony when the man falls out of the sky.

Steve’s heart stops in his throat at the sight. Tony tumbles, tumbles, tumbles, and all Steve can think is _not again_ . Banner is quick to catch Tony, but there’s no telling if it’s not already _too late_ , if maybe Tony didn’t survive, and with the mask off there’s just _so much blood_.

“You _idiot_ ,” Steve hisses, falling to his knees beside Tony, hands inches from the man’s face. “You _idiot_. You know the suicide mission isn’t your job.”

He finally dares to actually touch Tony, fingers at the back of his skull, thumbs on his cheekbones, and the world is a chaos of color that brings tears to Steve’s eyes. There are yellows and steels and blues, but all Steve can see is the _red, red, red_ : the Ironman suit, the blood on Tony’s face, the red of _anger, fury, sorrow_ that colors Steve’s gaze.

Tony gasps once, twice, then coughs. Everyone takes a step back to give him space, but Steve stays to help him sit, staring in disbelief. Tony looks up at him with eyes so _brown_ , and Steve… he just knows.

This time, _his soulmate sees it too_.

(The blood turns out to be from the capillaries of the inside of Tony’s nose bursting with the sudden change in pressure. His hearing and balance are also messed up for a few weeks afterwards, until they can be healed by the wonders of modern medicine. Nothing keeps him from his Shawarma, though.)

Months pass, and Steve falls slowly more and more in love. He draws in _color_ , something he can hardly even believe until he’s filled an entire notebook with sketches: of Natasha, of Clint, of Banner and Thor, of Tony, Tony, _Tony_ . Tony in his workshop with DUM-EE and the suits, in bed with the morning light falling just right on his face, in a bespoke suit with a deep red tie. Steve falls more and more in love with each passing day, each shared glance, each stolen moment, until his greatest fear becomes losing _this_ , losing _Tony_.

It’s his greatest fear, something the Scarlet Witch can exploit, but it never occurs to him that Tony might share the same fear until they’re at the Barton’s farm and Tony… he just breaks. It’s late, and they really should be sleeping, but instead Tony lays it all before Steve’s lap and- And he doesn’t break, but it’s a near thing. They promise, then, _no more secrets_.

Except that’s not a secret either of them can keep.

Bucky was a secret. How the Starks died was a secret. The Accords were a secret. And Steve watches everything fall apart _again_ , and he tries to pull it all together but things just spiral out of control and he _can’t._ He’s left with a choice, between Bucky and Tony, between what’s left of his family and the other half of his soul, and he just _can’t._

(He kisses Sharon in a desperate attempt to force himself into a choice. Because she looks _so much_ like Peggy, has all her best qualities, he thinks that maybe, just _maybe_. It doesn’t work though. Of course it doesn’t. It was a stupid idea. Peggy would tell him that if she were here. Bucky does it for her later.)

In the end, Steve can’t make the choice. They fight, to the _death,_ dragging everyone into their mess. He stands before Tony, the Man of Iron laying on the ground beaten and broken, and there’s no denying that Steve  _still loves him_ , that he couldn’t _possibly give Tony up_ . But he can’t give up Bucky either, can’t let Sam down, and his pride won’t let him so easily bend to Tony and accept that maybe Tony and the U.N were right with the Accords even if they did take it too far. _Captain America’s_ pride won’t let him.

So he drops his shield. He drops Captain America. Bucky might have been his friend, but _Tony was too_ , and he hopes that Tony understands what he means when he drops his shield. He doesn’t want to be Captain America anymore, not if it means that he has to lose everything _all over again_.

A few months later, Bucky goes back on ice. T’Challa’s scientists promise that they will work quickly, that Barnes will be their top priority. Steve just smiles and meanders out of the labs with a heavy heart. Bucky is asleep now, and Sam is off dismantling HYDRA bases with the help of a few trusted mutants, so Steve’s alone now. He can’t go back to the U.S, not yet, but he’s they’re making progress. Tony is looking like he’s slipping.

Steve’s phone buzzes when he gets to his hotel in Istanbul a few days later. It’s not a number he has saved, but he knows it by heart at this point.

_Hey. How you holding up?_

He smiles. _Well enough. How are you?_

 _Good._ Another few in quick succession. _I was there, you know. In Wakanda. I can’t say I approve of his choice, but I’m proud of him_.

Steve thinks back to the crowd of scientists that had gathered around when Bucky had stepped into the tube. Most of them had immediately gone back to work, but a few of them had disappeared afterwards. Steve might have caught the scent of grease in the sterile air, or a glimpse of a signature beard and goatee.

 _It was his choice,_ he sends back. For a little while, there’s nothing. Steve leaves and takes a twenty-minute shower, slips under the covers to sleep. There’s a message waiting for him when he goes to set his alarm.

 _I love you_ <3.

Steve smiles, kisses the top of his phone.

_I love you too._


End file.
